Aha! It is only 15 months until Americans pick a person to be their president for the next four years, after these 15 months of increasing clamour. It is certain — absent a transcendently clear smoking gun of circumstances that reach to the level of constitutional high crimes and misdemeanours, or proof positive of senile dementia on the part of the incumbent, triggering the unavoidable use of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution — that Donald Trump will run for re-election.

His followers believe he is their man, his donors continue to lavish contributions on his re-election campaign committee and his lock on what is left of Republican Party leadership beyond the apparatchiks in the White House pretty much guarantees it. So far.

That, of course, guarantees nothing about what the general election’s voters will say about it all, even with the Republicans’ vigorous voter suppression effort, and, perhaps, yet another assault on free elections, courtesy of the newest versions of those Russian bot farms and trolls. And, most of all, there remains the question of how likely it will be that the Democratic Party and its supporters coalesce around an electable candidate, or if they once again settle into their traditional circular firing squad, right up to and past their nominating convention.

As you read this, Democratic Party wannabe nominees are fanning out all across the Midwestern state of Iowa for appearances at the state’s annual state fair, as well as other potential speaking engagements in churches, clubs, diners, and barbeques (braais for those who do not speak American).

At the state fair, the candidates take maximum opportunity to speak to the crowds gathered for the traditional fair and all its attractions. And “why?” might you ask? Simply put, Iowa’s big chance to affect the shape of the upcoming presidential campaign is because Iowa’s presidential preference caucuses come first in the country in an election year. In citizen meetings all across the state in January 2020! Iowans ultimately pick the state’s delegates (and thus for whom they support) in the national nominating convention.

That’s why virtually every living, breathing declared Democratic candidate (except for former Congressman Beto O’Rourke of El Paso who returned home to his hurting city in the aftermath of the Walmart massacre) is wandering across the Iowa landscape right now. They are wolfing down dangerous numbers of corn dogs, open-pit grilled pork chops on a stick, and fried butter (an Iowa thing), in sufficient quantities to send even Tim Noakes for colonic cleansing.

Let’s assume, for the moment, that former vice president Joe Biden persuades sufficient numbers of American voters in the primaries that he really is electable, and that his various gaffes all get shrugged off as simply lovable demonstrations of his working-class, Irish-American “menschness”. And let’s further assume the Democratic Party nominating convention rallies around Biden and picks him by acclamation to be their standard-bearer in November against Donald Trump.

Crucially, let’s further assume that in this new climate of unity, the nominee elects to reach across the fissures of that party’s divisions and selects California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. (Would she turn it down? Of course not.) Let’s even assume that the entire remaining gaggle of candidates offers their full support to this unity ticket — except perhaps Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who grumbles back to Burlington, Vermont to sit things out in a multi-month, grumpy huff. (Readers may choose to make alternative projections, such as Harris, Warren, or even Booker or Buttigieg candidacies, but all of these alternatives must also keep the notion of “electability” uppermost in their minds.)

Now, make one last assumption. In a close election, the Biden-Harris ticket pulls through in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, as well as the rest of the states Hillary Clinton won, along with Georgia and Florida, and in which the vote count in Texas is so close the final, certified results in that state aren’t finally announced until after Inauguration Day. (Amazingly, Texas ultimately goes to Biden, thereby heralding a thorough reassessment by politicians, strategists and political scientists of the negative impact of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, one overwhelming even the near-religious fervour and support by Trump cultists for their messiah.)

A column in The Washington Post’s Power Up feature has Charlie Cook, one of the country’s foremost analysts and prognosticators of electoral results, saying that contra to what many still believe, Donald Trump is an underdog for re-election. As reported in The Washington Post:

“TRUMP THE UNDERDOG?: That’s the gist of the argument that political prognosticator Charlie Cook puts forth in the 2020 Almanac of American Politics, the ultimate guide to American politics. We got a sneak peek of the tome, which will be out later this month, which tries to get its arms around the Trump phenomenon and whether it’s an outlier or here to stay.

“Cook, in the book’s introduction, mildly debunks the growing fear among some Democrats and fellow pundits that Trump is favoured to win re-election. Never mind the Tom Friedman columns of the world, the bed-wetting over the Democratic Party’s leftward lurch and the assumption that Trump’s incumbency advantage is simply too great to overcome.

“Cook argues that Trump has a number of structural and historical challenges that are ‘at least as great as those faced by any of those eight previous elected presidents seeking re-election in the post-World War II-era’.”

We shall see. A week in politics is a lifetime and there are 15 months to contend with.

Regardless of who the Democrats’ candidates for president and vice president are, it should be clear that from the date they announced their candidacy, they have essentially been thinking, eating, and sleeping their campaigns, 24/7. But even with that all-consuming preoccupation with winning the election, candidates also must spend time thinking about what they will actually try to do once/if they are elected.

Importantly, unlike most parliamentary democracies, in America opposition presidential candidates do not have a whole cabinet-in-waiting for them to assume office if they win. Instead, in the days leading up to the election, and then especially in the period between early November and 20 January, a special transition bureaucracy is willed into existence to begin collecting CVs, and then winnowing down possible names for all the presidential appointments; several thousand of them, overall.

Most especially, key attention is on the Cabinet and heads of a clutch of independent agencies, for ambassadorships, as well as key staff in the White House. The latter are not subject to senatorial confirmation, such as the national security adviser and similar positions, but they obviously have key roles to play in any administration.

When Donald Trump won, an orderly transition process set up by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was quickly tossed aside and an ad hoc, disorderly process ensued. The inevitable chaotic results have been plain for all to see, as plainly unsuitable names have moved into and then out of senior positions in the Trump administration after embarrassing revelations have come along.

A more experienced politician and president-to-be, pretty much any of the Democratic candidates, will undoubtedly follow the more normal, usual path of a functioning transition organisation and they will be thinking about who will be joining them in senior positions before the votes are counted. More experienced Democrats will have all the names in front of them from a plethora of policy and administrative veterans at the many think tanks in Washington and beyond, in addition to those who had served in former cabinet and sub-cabinet positions.

With this in mind, let’s take that putative Biden-Harris administration and start to flesh out some possible appointments, given the need for experienced hands as well as a few Republican-leaning figures as well.

Undoubtedly, the successful candidate will take cognisance of the observation of Tufts University professor and frequent commentator Daniel Derzner:

“Meanwhile, it is not like the rest of the world has hit pause while the United States sorts out its own unpleasantness. Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass tweeted over the weekend a shortlist of entropic forces gripping the globe:

“‘US-China trade war, hottest July ever, Hong Kong on the edge, odds of US-Iran, Turkish-Kurdish conflicts mounting, new India-Pakistan Kashmir crisis, Japan-S Korea diplo/eco confrontation, looming Brexit: the word ‘disarray’ too restrained to capture the world’s deterioration. — Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) August 5, 2019’. ”

Here’s a list of some A-listers to consider:

Secretary of State? Richard Haass, the current head of the Council on Foreign Relations. Secretary of Defence? Retired General Colin Powell, of course (with a really tough nuts-and-bolts deputy for day-to-day management of that vast empire). Powell will have enough gravitas to spread around to the entire cabinet.

Director of the CIA? How about Senator Mark Warner, of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence? Attorney General? Who else but Congressman Adam Schiff. For Secretary of the Treasury? Timothy Geithner, back for a return stint in that punishing job.

National Security Adviser? Let’s consider analyst, writer, broadcaster Fareed Zakaria. Homeland Security? Beto O’Rourke. Housing and Urban Development? Pete Buttigieg. Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency, both, to give climate change issues a real boost? Why not Senator Elizabeth Warren? And for the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve System once that job opens? How about Dr Adam Posen, head of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (and previously a governor of the Bank of England).

There is still place for someone like Tim Cook over at the Department of Commerce, if he’ll do it; and perhaps Ambassador Nicholas Burns should be prevailed upon to take the job of US Ambassador to the UN to give some substance to that position again.

If by some chance the principal nominee is Senator Kamala Harris, the likely nominations might look rather similar, albeit with a more westward, Californian look, and slightly more leftward feel. If it is Senator Elizabeth Warren, the list would be a bit more Harvard and a bit more leftward, but perhaps not so much, if the intention is to get her nominees confirmed by a Senate that would likely still, albeit just barely, be in Republican hands.

There are still enormous “what ifs” to overcome, but once the Democratic nominee is selected, look carefully at the advisory panels and campaign surrogates operating on behalf of the candidate for clues as to who will be sitting in those “pound seats”, come January and February 2021 — if Donald Trump’s misdeeds finally do rise to unseat him. DM